Citizen Funded SuperPAC

Citizen Funded SuperPAC

9 years ago
kristn Super Voter Flag

Politics seems dominated by special interests and big money donors while many feel like spectators. All is not lost however; as the convergence of technology and political association promise to restore balance.

Krist Novoselic May 19, 2014

Lawrence Lessig is keen on the power of the internet to bring people together. His MayOne SuperPac is emerging as an important milestone on the road to the convergence of technology and political association. Dean For America in 2004 along with Ron Paul and Obama For America in 2008 respectively, proved that social networking can dovetail into the political arena. MayOne has recently crowd-sourced over $1 million dollars to further its political agenda. With this effort, like-minded citizens from across the nation made small individual contributions to amplify their collective voice in the forum of democracy.

Supply and Demand

We live in a capitalist system that bombards us constantly with advertising. Communicating to the masses is expensive. Candidates, parties and independent expenditures use donor contributed funds to pay for advertising to promote, or beat up on, a candidate or issue. This media is the demand side of politics; an area that many tend to ignore. Instead, many on the left seem to get hung up on the supply side of who is funding campaigns. MayOne also seems to dwell on who is putting money into campaigns; when they have the potential to be a significant supplier themselves.

“Help U.S. kickstart fundamental reform, by reducing the influence of money in politics.”

The statement above was taken from the MayOne web site. Here is why I disagree with it:  A group is making important strides to wed social networking with political association and the first thing they want to do, if successful, is to neuter themselves by placing limits on who can support campaigns!

Crowd-sourced MayOne is on the right track with being a supplier. Nevertheless, their current policy proposals seem caught up in the left wing media echo-chamber. Commentaries on the left beat a steady rhythm of angst regarding recent Supreme Court rulings striking down political contribution limits. Lefty commentators demonize large donors like the Koch bothers as villains. The notion of “corporate personhood” is constantly trotted out like some kind of evil bane on humanity. These perspectives exemplify reactionary politics. The Citizens United ruling was good for campaign finance transparency and internet freedom. The means of MayOne are really good and I have the highest respect for them. However, considering the potential for internet association, the end goal seems self-defeating.

MayOne, in light of its first million bucks, is still clinging to ideas like public financing vouchers. There is good news however, instead of wasting time waiting for some kind of state program, MayOne’s current financial position shows they are making progress with their innovative and meaningful citizen financed effort. The irony is that MayOne itself could make these proposed government programs obsolete — much like Obama For America did to public financing of presidential campaigns in 2008.

Instead of dwelling on these state centered campaign policy proposals, there are languishing challenges such as climate change, transparency in elections and opening up the political system that need leadership. We must elect candidates who will actually do something. It takes money to promote these issues with the candidates who will follow up and MayOne could be a good venue to supply it.

MayOne is showing the future of political association. I offer my congratulations on their first million dollars. Considering all of the money in politics, this sum is a small step for an upstart group — but a giant leap forward with political social networking. Their work can acclimatize citizens with how technology can level the political playing field. Technology provides a platform to amplify voices under rules that consider money speech. Money buys the speech that is media communication and I hope that MayOne raises enough to elect candidates who work to meet the real challenges of today.

In Case You Missed It! Last week was my first post on NewGov. It's Not Only Money In Politics

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  1. Flywheel
    8 years 11 months
    reply to

    The real challenge is improving the signal to noise ratio

    Money isn't the root of all evil here. It just makes the bad things worse. The size of the spending on political ads is less of a problem than the quality of the spending. We live in an era of character assassination and caricature amplification... CACA... If spending is drastically reduced, but the proportion of time given over to negative advertising and noisy journalism continues to worsen, people will be no better off. I understand why people like Lawrence Lessing are so concerned with finding ways to even the playing field by reducing the power of the super-rich, but I think it makes more sense to build systems that can empower voters with better decision-making tools.
  2. Jbartholomew
    9 years 1 week
    reply to

    I'm going to differ with you

    Hi Krist, I'm going to disagree to an extent with your opinions. I do not believe that a crowdsourced PAC will ever be close to being able to level the playing field. Especially when our system is supposedly based on a system of "all men are created equal." Whether you are a Koch family member or George Clooney, you're going to be able to donate huge amounts more than any MayOne-type PAC ever will. Why? Because of self-interest. The mega donors now have control of what their interests are, who they donate to, how much, etc. - and they can feel the impact directly. For a crowdsourced PAC to be effective, they can't stray from their set of issues, as they will lose donors if they do. And the donors to this PAC are not going to feel the impact as directly, in part because of the lack of control over the choices and agenda. I think this kind of movement in democracy is a creative, useful tool, but I don't think it will ultimately level the playing field - unless, they focused all their efforts on somehow overturning Buckley v. Valeo or passing a Constitutional Amendment establishing a separation of money and speech.
  3. brittb Super Voter Flag
    9 years 2 weeks
    reply to

    David Brin agrees

    David Brin is one of our most respected author-scientists. At 'A Looming Gilded Age: Capital, Affluence & Influence' , http://ngov.us/1p7pNBx, he also praises Lessig, as he had in an email to me last week. We had dinner last night with Kim Stanley Robinson, another legendary SF author, and spoke of these tough times for the Great American Experiment. He’s quite focused on how to help break the fever of what he calls our continuing Civil War. He blames much of it on the habit of scriptwriters to pit the noble individual against the imputed incompetence and ineptness of social institutions. They do so, Brin argues, because if the characters banned together in a crisis, the plot would resolve before the 2nd reel. He spoke enthusiastically of California’s Top Two law and its gerrymandering solution. So naturally I wondered if he might want to associate with FairVote. We spoke again this evening, and he's heard of FairVote, so I pledged to keep the thread alive.